As a regular rider on the excellent Santa Clarita Commuter Transit service for my own ride over the Pass, I received an email survey today that raised a few eyebrows.
2010 Commuter Route Survey
The survey covers three main points:
- Assessing the impact of the consolidation of the central SFV routes to NoHo station
- Marketing their U-Text SMS service (which is free and effective)
- Upselling new services, such as premium parking and WiFi
Say what you will about SCTransit in town, the Commuter Service (at least the line I ride) is quite popular. The bus is comfortable, the drivers are polite, and the service is generally very punctual. The U-Text service notifies riders if a bus is going to be late, another convenient feature. I’m quite sure SCTransit can assess how popular U-Text is by simply counting the subscriptions to that service, thus my conclusion that the survey is merely serving to market the feature.
But the most intriguing part of the survey is definitely the possibility of premium parking and WiFi internet access, two notable deficits in the current system. I’ve missed the bus by seconds due to parking issues, and the buses are packed with professionals wielding laptops and smartphones. Both will help monetize the service and provide even more convenience to an already great transit experience.
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So Jeff would you pay for WiFi on the bus?
I take the 747 and it’s just not long enough that i couldn’t wait and i can always check/send emails on my iPhone.
At first i thought it was sort of silly, anyone needing to work remotely that often would already have a wireless service. But i guess if you could work ‘anywhere’ you wouldn’t be taking the bus every day on a long commute.
I wonder if the bus system could get sponsored by Verizon like some of the coffee shops and just offer free WiFi.
I have to say having a TAP card is a delight.
As a Metrolink rider, I’ve been asking for Wi-Fi. Theres a good patch where we get no 3G signal, and a bigger patch where we get none at all.
I take Metrolink in the morning, but almost always take the 799 home in the evening. Our particular driver is a raging jerk. I can’t wait till the drivers get to pick their new routes in the next few months and we hopefully lose our current driver for good. But I digress. I would gladly pay extra for restroom service on the 799. I don’t care so much about WiFi since I don’t take my laptop to work and can access the internet via my iPhone. I can’t think of what else I would pay extra for. Maybe cocktail service. But that might suck without restrooms.
The City has a problem with their bus system infrastructure. They don’t require that entities with large parking lots set aside some spaces for ridesharing or public transit riders. The Park and Ride lots that exist are poor and often overstuffed, and they have lots of burglaries. But yet under OVOV, there will be more public transit ridership necessary to keep things flowing. Where will folks park? Who will pay for parking? Likely the folks wanting to use public transit (thus the proposal to pay for premium spaces). Might work. Train stations often times charge for parking passes. But if having folks take public transit is important to the City, they need to make it economically attractive to overcome the time inefficiencies. Charging for parking won’t help this. A bit of funding for decent lots would go a long way! It is amazing that there is essentially no parking at the transit center. There should be tons!
Ride your bike to the transit point of your choice. Get a three wheeler if necessary. Or pay more for the service and park your car. Why should the rest of us pay for you to get to and from?
Just asking.
Need for Involved Citizenry: What large entities would you suggest having the governement force parking space from? Have something in mind?